Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(32)
*Don’t pre-arrange first-time sex.
*Don’t try to have sex too soon.
*Don’t make him feel caged.
*Never mention any of the following: exes, how fat you are, how insecure you are, problems, issues, money, cellulite, Botox, liposuction, facial peels/lasers/microdermabrasion, etc., control undergarments, possible shared parking permits when married, seating plans for wedding reception, babysitters, marriage/religion (unless you’ve just realized he’s a polygamous Mormon, in which case get blind drunk and bring up all of the previous in one hysterical gabble and excuse yourself because you feel fat and have to get back for the babysitter).
*Create beautiful memories.
*Do not text while drunk.
Of course this immense body of knowledge was entirely theoretical: rather as with a philosopher who sits in an ivory tower (NB an actual ivory tower, not IvoryTowers.net, the dating website), developing theories about how life ought to be lived, without actually living it.
The only thing I had to work with was the experience with Leatherjacketman. Examining the mistakes I made there, from my newly well-read perspective of informed understanding, allowed me to heal my sense of incompetence, grossness, failure and unlovableness and give me hope that, even if all is lost, if indeed it had ever been found, with Leatherjacketman, it was perhaps not lost with all other males of the species for ever.
However, there was another section – RULES FOR GETTING DATES – which was entirely empty.
WALLOWING IN IT
Monday 26 November 2012
132lb, Twitter followers impressed with knowledge of dating self-help books and Dating Rules 468, romantic prospects 0.
12.30 p.m. Just got back from Oxford Street. Whole thing is mutated as if by an avalanche of lights, sparkly baubles, romantic shop-window tableaux and festive songs on a loop, inducing the panicky feeling that Christmas has suddenly fast-forwarded itself and arrived, and I’ve forgotten to buy the turkey. What am I going to do? I’m not ready for the impending hysterical-taste-of-others exam, the sense of needing to do all the things you already have to do plus another twice-as-big layer of Christmas things on top. Worse, the forcing down the throat of perfect nuclear family, hearth-and-home tableaux, the tragic emotions, the helpless flashbacks to Christmases past, and doing Santa on your own and . . .
1 p.m. House seems dark, lonely and forlorn. How can I possibly get on with writing screenplay when feel like this?
1.05 p.m. That’s better, was wearing prescription sunglasses again. But still cannot face the thought of getting the tree, and getting out all the decorations that Mark and I bought together and . . . at least we have the St Oswald’s House cruise to look forward to . . .
1.20 p.m. Oh God. What am I going to do about that? I have to let Mum know in just under four weeks. The children will drown, and it’ll be impossible, but if I don’t go, I’ll just be on my own with the kids, trying to make it all work, and I’m just alone. Aloooone!
Sunday 2 December 2012
9.15 p.m. Just called Jude and explained psychological meltdown. ‘You have to get online.’
9.30 p.m. Have signed up for a free trial on SingleParentMix.com. Have followed Jude’s advice and slightly lied about my age as who is going to even look at a profile over fifty? Though don’t tell Talitha I even thought that. Have not put a photo up or a profile or anything.
9.45 p.m. Ooh, I’ve got a message! A message! Already! You see there ARE people out there, and . . .
Oh. It’s from forty-nine-year-old man called ‘5timesanight’.
Well, that’s . . . that’s . . .
Just clicked on message: <Hiya sexy! lol :)>
Just clicked on picture. Is of a plump, heavily tattooed man, wearing a short black rubber dress and a blond wig.
Mark, please help me. Mark.
9.50 p.m. Come on, come on. Keep Buggering On. I have just got to, got to get over this. I MUST stop thinking, ‘If only Mark was here.’ I must stop thinking of the way he used to sleep with his arm across my shoulder, like he was protecting me, the physical intimacy, the scent of the armpit, the curve of muscle, the stubble on the chin. The way I felt when he answered the phone about work and went into his busy and important mode, then he’d look at me in the middle of the conversation with those brown eyes, so sort of smouldering, yet vulnerable. Or Billy saying, ‘Do puzzles?’ and Mark and Billy spending hours doing incredibly complicated puzzles because they were both so clever. I can’t carry on having every sweet thing which happens with the children tinged with sadness. Saliva being picked to play the little baby Jesus in Mabel’s first nativity play (Mabel was a hen). Billy’s first grown-up carol concert. Billy and Mabel buying me the Nespresso machine I’d been wanting for Christmas (helped by Chloe) as a ‘surprise’, then Mabel telling me about it every night in a furtive whisper. I can’t have another Christmas like that. I can’t have another year like this. I can’t carry on like this.
10 p.m. Just called Tom. ‘Bridget, you have to grieve. You haven’t grieved properly. Write Mark a letter. Wallow in it. W.A.L.L.O.W.’
10.15 p.m. Just went upstairs. I found Billy and Mabel cuddled up together in the top bunk. Awkwardly I climbed up the ladder and got in with them and then Billy woke up and said, ‘Mummy?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
‘Where is Dada?’ Feeling my insides wrenching apart with pain for Billy, I pulled him to me, terrified. Why were we all feeling like this tonight?